Katie Boulter had just lost a tie-break at the French Open when the death threats started. It did not matter that the Briton would go on to win the match.
“Hope you get cancer,” said one message.
Another – laced with expletives – referenced damaging her “grandmother’s grave if she’s not dead by tomorrow” and “candles and a coffin for your entire family”.
A third said: “Go to hell, I lost money my mother sent me.”
The British number two’s response, as she reads through them 10 days later, is a mix of despair, resignation and fear.
Boulter agreed to sit down with BBC Sport to provide unprecedented insight into the volume and nature of abuse received by players, including sharing screenshots of her private inbox.
‘It shows how vulnerable we are’
Boulter’s reasoning for sharing the messages is two-fold.
The first, she says, is abusive content like this has become “the norm”. Boulter, 28, also has fears about the impact it can have on younger players.
“At the very start of my career, it’s probably something I took very personally… getting comments about the way you look,” she says.
“It becomes more apparent every single time you go on your phone.
“I think it increases in number and it also increases in the level of things that people say. I don’t think there’s anything off the cards now.”
The message threatening her loved ones was sent during her French Open first-round match against Carole Monnet on 29 May. (BBC)